The trend is clear. Nobody else will take care of your financial future. With the social safety net failing and guaranteed pensions falling by the wayside, if you ever want to retire, you need to take matters into your own hands. So if you want your golden years to be comfortable, you'd better get started. Now.

Your keys for successA successful retirement is still possible, if you're willing to make the most of three very important tools:

Money

Time

A strong plan

The first of those should be pretty obvious -- of course you'll need money to retire. Just because you plan to stop working, that doesn't mean you plan to stop spending. You'll still have to eat, and you may just want to travel the world, spoil your grandkids, or do any number of other wonderful things with your newfound freedom. And all of those wonderful things require cash.

So you'll need a target. Let's pick $1 million as a starting point for a goal -- you can adjust it from there to match your own idea of a successful retirement and your own projections for inflation.

Time's a-wastingOf course, if you already had that kind of money, you wouldn't still be reading this. That's where the second tool -- time -- comes in handy. This table shows how much you'll need to sock away every month to reach that $1 million target:

Time
(Years)

8% Annual
Returns

9% Annual
Returns

10% Annual
Returns

11% Annual
Returns

10

$5,466.09

$5,167.58

$4,881.74

$4,608.33

15

$2,889.85

$2,642.67

$2,412.72

$2,199.30

20

$1,697.73

$1,497.26

$1,316.88

$1,155.22

25

$1,051.50

$891.96

$753.67

$634.46

30

$670.98

$546.23

$442.38

$356.57

35

$435.94

$339.93

$263.39

$202.91

40

$286.45

$213.61

$158.13

$116.28

45

$189.59

$135.05

$95.40

$66.90

50

$126.08

$85.70

$57.72

$38.57

As you can see, the earlier you get started, the easier and cheaper it is to reach your goal.

Get there from hereAs for those 8% to 11% potential returns, those numbers weren't just picked out of a hat. Historically, the S&P 500 has earned investors an average annual return of somewhere around 10% to 11%. Even assuming that average return, not all of the stocks within it move in unison. For instance, while the index itself has lost around 4.8% in the past year, check out the performance of some of the individual constituents within that index:

Company

One-Year Gain (Loss)

Lennar (NYSE:LEN)

(64.2%)

Citigroup (NYSE:C)

(49.4%)

Target (NYSE:TGT)

(11.2%)

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)

6.9%

Abbott Laboratories

7.4%

Schlumberger (NYSE:SLB)

26.5%

Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY)

41.5%

From Yahoo! Finance through Jan. 28, 2008.

On one end, the housing meltdown is hampering lenders like Citigroup and homebuilders like Lennar. On the other end, strong energy prices are allowing oil services company Schlumberger and oil exploration firm Occidental Petroleum to absolutely shine. Mix them up with 493 other companies, and you get the performance of the index on average.

The problem with investing only in stocks, though, is that sometimes, even a broad stock index can fall. To temper that risk, many investors further diversify their holdings into bonds as well as stocks. That risk reduction doesn't come free, though -- the price for calm is a lower overall expected return. Depending on the specifics of your holdings, it's quite easy to see your expected returns fall from the 10% to 11% range to the 8% to 9% range -- or even lower.

Get started the right wayRemember those three very important tools:

Money

Time

A strong plan

As you've probably noticed, there are several questions you need to answer before you can build and execute a retirement plan that works for you. Yet you must answer them if you want any chance of both retiring well and reaching retirement without excessively sacrificing your quality of life along the way.

Knowing the right questions -- and how to find their answers -- are critical components to creating your plan. Fortunately, my colleague Robert Brokamp and his team are masters at helping people build the plan that takes them from here to retirement. Their online help, planning tools, and regular newsletter are all included with your membership to Motley Fool Rule Your Retirement. To learn more or to start your 30-day free trial, click here.

This article was originally published Oct. 5, 2007. It has been updated.

At the time of publication, Fool contributor Chuck Saletta owned shares of Microsoft and class B shares of Lennar. Microsoft is a Motley Fool Inside Value recommendation. The Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Chuck Saletta has been a regular Fool contributor since 2004. His investing style has been inspired by Benjamin Graham's Value Investing strategy. Chuck also can be found on the "Inside Value" discussion boards as a Home Fool.